Multi-Touch Patents, You Belong to Apple Now

What was once but an administrative possibility has become the most sublime of legal certainties: Apple has been granted the multi-touch patents.

Credited to the one, Steve Jobs, and the many, Scott Forestall and the iPhone team, the news patents are simultaneously as wide ranging as they are specifically crafted towards the implementation of one or many fingers interacting on the screen in a mobile device, with the most subtle of heuristic interpretations.

Apropos the heretofore mentioned anomaly; ergo Palm Pre’s exacting duplication of the iPhone’s multi-touch gestures and behavioral interactions and Apple’s deliberately obscure threats in their direction, these new patents provide a single, potentially catastrophic result of a singular equation: Apple has grounds to sue.

Vis a vis Palm’s own far-reaching patent portfolio in the mobile space: these remain a perplexing, perhaps equation changing variable. Through one door, a cross licensing agreement. Through the other, years if not decades of litigation.

In sum, the situation remains predictably uncertain.

(Thanks to David, Chad, and everyone who sent this in!)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Multi-Touch Patents, You Belong to Apple Now

Apple throws another curveball, approves Podcaster for the App Store with changes

Apple had already solidly cemented its reputation as the confused, identity crisis-stricken, moral dilemma-having lord ruler of the App Store with its recent approval of a number of browsers that would seemingly violate its "duplication of functionality" policy, but now it's doing some serious soul-searching with this latest move. Remember Podcaster? The on-the-go podcast downloader predated Apple's own mobile download capability by months -- but Cupertino struck the thing down for encroaching on iTunes' territory, seemingly dooming it to a life of ad hoc installs and jailbreaks. It's just been given a fresh lease on life, though, emerging as "RSS Player" and killing off Podcaster's built-in directory of casts; Apple's suddenly cool with the revised app, giving it two thumbs-up on the way to the App Store, but it's not clear if the directory functionality was the problem, there's a policy change in play here, or the name change simply fooled the App Store admins into giving the green light. At any rate, in case you're wondering why you'd shell out $1.99 for the pleasure of this "duplication of functionality," RSS Player will let you blow by iTunes' 10MB limit -- and, of course, you can download any feed you like. Thanks, Apple. [Warning: iTunes link]

[Via UNEASYsilence]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio

Apple throws another curveball, approves Podcaster for the App Store with changes originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple Awarded iPhone and Multi-Touch Patent

Perhaps adding teeth to Apple's recent comments that they would vigorously defend their intellectual property behind the iPhone, World of Apple notes that the U.S. Patent Office has awarded Apple the patent on their application titled Touch s...

Important: Be Careful with Latest QuickTime Update if you have Re-enabled DFU Mode in Mac OS X 10.5.6

iPhone apps round-up: Apples2Oranges price-comparison app

Apples2Oranges lets you compare the prices of different quantities of the same product to make sure you’re getting the most for your money. It also offers nutritional comparisons by letting you know how many calories are in different serving sizes.

Walking with the stars

Filed under: Software, Education, Reviews, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

The popular astronomy application Star Walk [App Store link] $4.99 US, has been updated with some new features. You can now see meteor showers on screen, as well as connect to Wikipedia for more information on objects you have selected on the detailed star map.

Star Walk is probably the prettiest of the astronomy guides available for the iPhone and iPod touch. It nicely renders the dense clouds of the Milky Way, and has good visual details of the planets. It also has photos of the Messier objects, which are galaxies, star clusters and nebula.

Star Walk is location aware, so it can match what you see in the sky to what is on screen using then GPS, or you can select from 10,000 cities. You can change your location to anywhere on earth, and manipulate time to look forward and backwards. You could see what the skies were like on your birthday, or even what they looked like centuries ago or centuries ahead.

Things that could be improved would be on screen buttons that take you to the N, S, E, and W skies. The way things work now, you have to drag the map around. When you look up a Wikipedia item, it throws you out of the program. It would be better to build in a web-kit browser so you don't have to launch Star Walk again.

The app has no built in documentation. The company web site has a short PDF with more information. Although the skies in Star Walk are beautiful, most of the skies we see in real life are not. It would be nice to be able to dim the faint stars down to more accurately mimic what we see in the real world.

Nature lovers and amateur astronomers will like this program. Some of the other options at the app store include Distant Suns, [link]at $5.99 US which I have reviewed previously, and Starmap [link] US 11.99 US.

Here are some screen shots:

Walking with the stars originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Walking with the stars originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iBluetooth Video Demo Confirms Bluetooth File Transfer Coming Soon to the iPhone

Video: iPhone on Crack

No, it’s not running our favorite frenemy OS, the pushy little BlackBerry JavaME, it’s a new app pending approval in the App Store — Cracked LCD, specifically — and TiPb member the_idol was kind enough to share this advance peek at it in our forums:

read the above-linked thread for all the details, and enjoy the video — and the prank’ish fun it might just give you later.

Anyone gonna try this out?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Video: iPhone on Crack

MotionX: Poker Quest

Filed under: Gaming, iPhone, iPod touch

One of the first apps I downloaded when I inherited my brother's old iPhone was MotionX Dice. It was brilliant in its execution: 3D dice rendered with loving detail, lots of custom dice and perfect use of the accelerometer. MotionX games are variations on a theme, however, and they've taken their MotionX Poker system, wrapped it in an Egyptian theme, and cranked up the fun. The game is simple: roll the dice to get a hand, choose which you keep and which you put back, and repeat until the hand is over.

What's the big deal about a dice-based poker app? Well, for one, it's one of those games you can pick up and play within seconds. Dice poker, for whatever reason, feels less like "real" poker, and my brain tends to relax more than it would playing a "real" poker game (such as Apple's Hold 'Em game). It's mostly a casual game, but there are enough stats and surprises to keep you playing after the initial gee whiz factor wears off.

To keep games fresh, designers often add unlockable content and statistics. With Poker Quest, the unlockables come in the form of additional themed dice, levels and "my treasures." The treasures are triggered when you achieve a notable event, like "Win ten career hands." The stats are plentiful including how much you've played, how much you've won, and a detailed breakdown on what hands you've had when you play. I didn't unlock any levels, but the gameplay shouldn't change, just your surroundings.

Dice poker games are relatively easy to craft and they are very easy to play. It's nice to see MotionX bringing some style to the genre, however. Their trademark animated 3D dice and gorgeous textured backdrops add just enough flair to the poker dice game to make things really fun for repeat play. If you're still not sold, try the free version of MotionX Poker Quest [App Store link]. The full version costs $2.99 [App Store link], which is a fair price if you like dice, poker or quick, casual games.

MotionX: Poker Quest originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MotionX: Poker Quest originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm wants Apple to talk to the hand

Apple and Palm traded veiled threats last week over intellectual property issues related to their smartphone products.

Apple iLife ‘09 Available at Best Buy Today, Apple Stores Tomorrow

Apple announced this morning that iLife '09 will start becoming available on January 27th at Apple retail stores and Apple Authorized retailers. Several readers, however, have been able to pick up early copies at local Best Buy stor...

Analyst Speculates on iMac Delays: Quad vs Dual Core?

AppleInsider relays the latest analyst report from Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu claims that the iMac delays could relate to both technical and strategic decisions from Apple.

First, the analyst claims that even at this late date, Appl...

Emoji on your iPhone :-)

Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone

Emoji, Japanese for "picture" + "letter," is a set of picture characters used in Japan much in the same way as emoticons here in the US. The Emoji pictographs, however, offer a wider variety of images than emoticons which are typically limited to just expressing an emotion or facial expression such as winking.

Emoji pictographs include the usual suspects from the emoticon gang as well as many others. Such gems as the top hat, a diamond ring for "txting" your wedding proposal, and also some holiday goodies like Santa, and a ghost are all part of the fun! For the majority of cell phones, Emoji is a Japanese-focused feature that is not implemented much in the US. Some, however, have already enabled the use of Emoji through a process that requires jailbreaking the iPhone.

There is a simpler way, however. We touched on the enabling of Emoji in a recent iPhone 101 article. This post over at MacTalk provides a very detailed step-by-step walkthrough for enabling Emoji on iPhones with firmware 2.2. Justine also covered this procedure for enabling Emoji over at her site.

The process involves purchasing and briefly using an application called FrostySpace ($0.99, iTunes link). The result is that a new international keyboard, "Emoji," is available for your use. Please note: FrostySpace is a Japanese-languageTaiwanese RSS feed reader that may be of limited utility for some users.

If you get this working (or don't) we'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

Thanks to Chris Pirillo and others for sending this in!

Emoji on your iPhone :-) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Emoji on your iPhone :-) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New iPhone Apps for Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Archibald's Adventures ($7.99) by Rake In Grass. Archibald and his friends were near a dump behind a mysterious mansion of inventor - professor Klumpfus. Accidently Archie fell down a pipe and ended up in professor's basement. In the same time some crazy experiment went wrong and all genetically engineered creatures ...

Where to Golf Review

If you do a lot of travelling and find yourself constantly searching for the nearest golf course, Carpe Diem Venture "Where to Golf" may just be that iphone app that you're looking for. As I mentioned in the vid review, Where to Golf contains a database of over 19,000 golf ...

Review: iNewz for iPhone

iNewz is a rich source of mainstream media with wide-ranging and diverse content. But the iPhone and iPod touch app suffers from a pedestrian look and poor offline reading support.

What’s wrong with buying apps for 99 cents?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Dan Moren over at Macworld has picked up the App Store pricing gauntlet yet again. He somehow equates the iPhone's price dropping to $199 as a symbol that cheap people are shopping the App Store -- as if anyone who's interested in spending $199 on a phone can be called cheap. But he's starting from the right place: from AppCubby's donationware scheme (they sell apps for 99 cents and ask people to donate more on their site) to the Sound Grenade developer (he made a self-described "terrible" app in 20 minutes and threw it up on the App Store -- only to get hundreds of thousands of downloads), something is very weird in the world of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Moren's final point seems to be that an excess of 99 cent apps is pushing the really talented developers out of business (because they can't make back what they put into the software by selling it for 99 cents), but there's still something wrong there. If someone can sell 100,000 copies of an app for a buck apiece (walking away with $70,000 after Apple's cut), why are the talented developers leaving? Surely you can make a quality app for less than $70,000, right?

We're obviously still closer to the beginning of how the App Store will eventually shape up rather than the end. It sure seems like developers who create worthwhile apps would find a way to pay for them, but if they can't, then yes, it might be worth another look at the pricing setup from Apple end.

What's wrong with buying apps for 99 cents? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

What's wrong with buying apps for 99 cents? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone Blue Tooth File Transfer… for Jailbreak!

First Jeremy tells us about Jailbreak getting (yet another dose of) cut/copy and paste love, now it’s Blue Tooth File Transfer. What’s next, A2DP Stereo Blue Tooth? iSigh. Spazziocellulare (via BGR) says:

iBluetooth application is not yet finished. As soon as will be complete, it will be hosted in Cydia throught the iSpazio Repository.

Just goes to show whatever vacuum Apple leaves, the hackers will fill! Check out the video and let us know what you think. Anyone itching to try this functionality out?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone Blue Tooth File Transfer… for Jailbreak!

Apps for Less: Wanted Poster Maker, MINI Liquid Assets, Falling Balls

Today we are trying something a little different; usually we like to bring you some worthy apps that have recently dropped in price or are currently on sale. Well for today’s edition we are bringing you some apps to check out that are completely free.

Read more after the break!

This first freebie, Wanted Poster Maker, [iTunes Link] is worth a look if you like making friends and family look funny while placing them on a Old West wanted poster [like our own Dead Eye Dieter - ed] …

Create your own Old West Wanted posters! Select a picture or take a new one and customize the text. You can also customize the picture by adding mustaches, hats and many more cool props. Once you add a prop to your picture, you can scale and rotate it by using your fingers (pinch gesture). More props will be added in future free upgrades.

Next up is a app that our very own Alienwhere, from TiPb forums gave us a link to, MINI Liquid Assets. [iTunes Link]

It is based on a child’s water game - you know the kind - where you have a toy filled with water, and you push buttons to force small items into/onto something else? (I had a basketball one, and one where you had to drop rings onto little posts as a kid…) I personally did the sound design (music/effects/etc) for the project, and we worked very hard to make it as fun as possible while sticking to the branding of the product and meeting the needs of our client. We designed our own physics engine and tweaked every aspect of it that we could to make it as true to form as possible, while still meeting our deadlines.

Last but not least, we have the current top free app in the App Store, Falling Balls. [iTunes Link] This is a very simplistic yet strangely addicting game. Worth checking out and best of all it’s free!

This one’s a freebie. It’s actually based on a Flash experiment I did way back in October or 2001. As a matter of fact, I opened up that original FLA and ripped out the frame by frame graphics of the running stick figure guy, pasted them into Fireworks and saved them out as pngs for use in the iPhone game. So, despite what it looks like, this game has been in development for over 7 years

Enjoy!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apps for Less: Wanted Poster Maker, MINI Liquid Assets, Falling Balls

THQ Wireless releases Chop Sushi to the App Store

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Chop Sushi is a brand new game from our friends at THQ in the App Store that combines a love of the Japanese raw fish dish with an interesting twist on the kind of gem-matching battle gameplay that Puzzle Quest made famous (and addictive) a few years ago. It's still a matching game, except you're matching wasabi and rolls instead of gems and skulls, and instead of choosing one gem to switch another, you choose a piece and then swipe it to the end of a row or column, making a match anywhere on the board (as the rest of the pieces fill in for the one you moved). It's hard to explain, but easy to pick up, and tough to master -- the different movements make this one worth a look even if you've played Puzzle Quest or any of its spiritual successors 'till exhaustion.

THQ Wireless releases Chop Sushi to the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

THQ Wireless releases Chop Sushi to the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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